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This is a project of a student seminar supervised by Dr. J. Rodrigues. Our aim is to investigate the influence of expectation on electrodermal and behavioural activity in the Ultimatum Game, as well as the course of mid-frontal theta in the UG.

This preregistration is part of the CoScience Project. Specifically, it is an exploratory extension to the preregistration found here https://osf.io/qxu7v

This preregistration is part of the large-scale CoScience project. In the attached document the specific research background, the hypotheses, applied operationalizations as well as the data preprocessing and analysis strategy is outlined. This study aims to examine the link between EEG markers during reward processing, self-reported extraversion trait, and the neurobiological mechanisms involved in reward anticipation and consumption.

This bachelor thesis is part of a replication study of Hewig et al., 2011. It focusses on gender differences on behavioral and neuronal level when playing the Ultimatum Game.

A replication study of Hewig et al., 2011 in the context of a bachelor thesis

The ultimatum game is a well-established method used for investigating human behavior in economic decision making. A proposer is asked to split an amount of credits between themself and a responder. The responder is asked to decide whether they want to accept this offer, in which case both players get the respectively stated credits, or reject the offer, in which case both players do not receive any credits. In this study, all participants get the opportunity to act as a proposer and a responder in the ultimatum game. Across conditions, all subjects play against other subjects as well as against a computer. Throughout the whole study, participants will be provided with a maximum of valid information, meaning for example that they will be informed that the announcement of the opponent – either a human or a computer – can either be true or false. Subjects will also be aware of the fact that they are actually going to be paid what they earn during the game. Research questions that will be addressed are: - Do subjects believe in the announcement that their opponent is either a human or a computer? - Are subjects able to distinguish between human opponents and computer opponents? - Do subjects treat human opponents and computer opponents differently? - Can differences in personality account for some of the difference in behavior between facing a human or a computer in the ultimatum game?

This bachelor thesis deals with altruistic behavior in a common goods game (Fischbacher, Gächter & Fehr, 2001; Weber, Weisel & Gächter, 2018), including the condition of altruistic punishment. The goal is to find out how people behave in a common goods game with public goods and how they react to the behavior of other players when a possibility of punishment is available, taking into account various variables. Possible influencing factors of the behaviour could be the character traits altruism and anger as well as gender.

This preregistration is like the Project "Dictator Game Suggestion and Economic Cyberball" under the conduct of Dr. Johannes Rodrigues. This project focuses on the experimental paradigm of the dictator's game as a part of a Bachelor Thesis. This paradigm shall investigate the influence of trait altruism on economic decisions. To achieve this, a slightly modified paradigm of the dictator game is constructed. In addition, we examine the influence of the monthly income of the recipient as well as the non-binding suggestion of the recipient.

Preregistration of Hypothesis in the CoScience Project.

Preregistration of Hypothesis in the CoScience Project.

In my bachelor thesis I want to examine the effect of trait greed on economic decision-making behaviour, the differences between interactions with other humans and a computer and the interdependency of these two variables. This bachelor thesis is part of a larger project that studies other personality traits and other aspects of decision-making behavior. The participants will play an ultimatum game.

Preregistration of Hypothesis in the CoScience Project.

Preregistration of Hypothesis in the CoScience Project.

Preregistration of Hypothesis in the CoScience Project.

Priming describes a phenomenon in which behavior is unconsciously influenced in a certain direction. Every decision is shaped by situational influences and stimuli. In priming, previously stored stimulus-response patterns are activated, resulting in the associated behavior (Bargh, 2006). In this experiment, priming will be evaluated in relation to altruism and greed. Finding a consistent definition of altruism is proving to be a complex matter for scholars. In this study, the definition is assumed to describe altruism as a voluntary act of doing something good for another person. This behavior is exhibited without expectation of reward or avoidance of external aversive stimuli or punishment (Eisberg and Miller, 1987). Thus, this definition is classified by us at the second level of the Hierarchical Model to Altruism (Rodrigues & Hewig, 2021). In doing so, it divides prosocial behavior into motives according to which people act altruistically (Rodrigues & Hewig, 2021). In our context, the background of motivation here is the empathy-altruism hypothesis. The empathy-altruism hypothesis itself is defined as a higher willingness to help when empathy toward the person in need is also high, regardless of whether it is easy or difficult to escape from the existing situation. At the same time, this means in reverse that when empathy is low, the degree of help depends on the given possibilities of escape. In the case of easy escape, less helping is assumed than in the case of a situation from which it is very difficult to escape (Bierhoff, 2010). To prime altruism in this context, we use a podcast on self-compassion. That altruism is related to self-compassion was evaluated by Neff and Pommier in 2013 (r=.24, Neff & Pommier, 2013). Furthermore, a pilot study showed that induced self-compassion promotes prosocial behavior (p=.04, Lindsay & Creswell, 2014). Here, self-compassion was induced by writing about a value important to the subject and then measured by helping behavior when the lab shelf collapsed (Lindsay & Creswell, 2014). As a second evaluation, another podcast on the topic of greed will be used to prime the opposite character trait of greed. In previous studies, selfishness in particular served as a direct opposite to altruism (Staudinger, 2019). Evidence from Mussel and Hewig shows that there is a relationship between greed and selfishness (r=0.22, Mussel & Hewig, 2016). With this in mind, we take up greed as a second construct. For both podcasts, we used 19 priming words associated with each character trait. For altruism, we drew on the study by Walther and colleagues (Walther et al., 2001). To evaluate for the greed priming words, a preliminary study was conducted. In this, 33 terms were elaborated from the literature that were often associated with greed in the past. Subsequently, twelve subjects rated the individual terms on a five-point Likert scale according to how much they associated the respective term with greed. From these, a selection of the 19 highest-rated terms was then made as priming words on the topic of greed. To measure how altruistic or greedy the subjects behaved after listening to the podcast, these characteristics were evaluated using decision games (ultimatum game, dictator game, and third party dictator game). ############################# References: Bargh, J. A. (2006). What have we been priming all these years? on the development, mechanisms, and ecology of nonconscious social behavior. European Journal of Social Psychology, 36(2), 147–168. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.336 Bierhoff, H.-W. (2010). Psychologie prosozialen Verhaltens (2 vollstän). Kohlhammer. Lindsay, E. K., & Creswell, J. D. (2014). Helping the self help others: Self-affirmation increases self-compassion and pro-social behaviors. Frontiers in Psychology, 5(MAY), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00421 Mussel, P., & Hewig, J. (2016). The life and times of individuals scoring high and low on dispositional greed. Journal of Research in Personality, 64, 52–60. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2016.07.002 Neff, K. D., & Pommier, E. (2013). The Relationship between Self-compassion and Other-focused Concern among College Undergraduates, Community Adults, and Practicing Meditators. Self and Identity, 12(2), 160–176. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2011.649546 Rodrigues, J., & Hewig, J. (2021). Let ́s call it altruism ! A psychological perspective and hierarchical framework of altruism and prosocial behavior. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 6(11), 951–952., April. Staudinger, B. (2019). Positive und negative Auswirkungen von Egoismus und Altruismus : Ein Primingexperiment. Walther, E., Müller, D., & Schott, O. (2001). Automatisches soziales Verhalten:Wie wirkt sich die Aktivierung der Konzepte Egoismus und Altruismus auf Hilfeleistung aus? Experimental Psychology, 48(3), 248–257. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1026//0949- 3946.48.3.248.

This preregistration contains the general information on the project, while specifics to the individual hypotheses are registered separately. The files submitted here will be later used to complete the seperate submissions.

"Almost" one-shot (1 interaction per block with one of 3 other players) Online Ultimatum game: 6 Players, trait greed, state and trait trust, alternating opponents; real vs. computer. For theoretical framework, see hypotheses section. This project is part of a larger study, see comment at the end.

This preregistration is under the conduct of Dr. Johannes Rodrigues. Two experimental paradigms shall investigate the influence of trait altruism and greed on economic decisions. To achieve this, slightly modified paradigms of the dictator game and the cyberball game were constructed.

In my bachelor thesis I will investigate the influence of the personality traits greed and anxiety as well as age on risky decision behavior in the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART). The Balloon Analogue Risk Task is a computerized measure of risk taking behavior. The BART models real-world risk behavior through the conceptual frame of balancing the potential for reward versus loss. At the beginning, the research participants will fill out a self-assessment questionnaire for greed and for anxiety. Subsequently, the participants complete the BART task in two different variants, in the mixed gambling task in which expected gains as well as losses are possible and in the gain only gambling task in which no losses are possible. In the mixed gambling task, both the individual risk attitude and the loss aversion can lead to the risk behavior shown. In the gain only gambling task, on the other hand, where no losses are possible, only the individual risk attitude can lead to the risk behavior shown. I will examine risky decision behavior in terms of personality traits as well as the age of the research participants.

Preregistration of Hypothesis in the CoScience Project.

Preregistration of Hypothesis in the CoScience Project.

Preregistration of Hypothesis in the CoScience Project.

Preregistration of Hypothesis in the CoScience Project.

Preregistration of Hypothesis in the CoScience Project.

This paper will investigate how subtyping affects attentional processes in discriminating different group exemplars and what influence the predictability of stereotype conformity of individual exemplars has on this. Furthermore, it will be determined whether openness to new experiences affects the estimated validity of a stereotype. Building on the work of Deutsch and Fazio (2008), the learning paradigm "BeanFest Game" by Fazio, Eiser and Shook (2004) will be used. Since the experiment is conducted online, it is also tested whether the results can be replicated outside a controlled laboratory environment.

Preregistration of Hypothesis in the CoScience Project.

Questionnaire study on the effects of the home-study situation during the Covid-19 pandemic on students' well-being, study satisfaction, and academic performance as a function of their personality.